


Not a Dream

by Capucine



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Animated Series, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, Gen, Medical Abuse, Medical Trauma, Over the Edge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 14:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4709522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capucine/pseuds/Capucine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Barbara Gordon had truly died in Over the Edge? What if Batman, Nightwing, and Robin had been captured, and Jim Gordon's grief knew no bounds?</p>
<p>Batman and Nightwing are in the for the test of their lives when Robin's life is in danger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Dream

**Author's Note:**

> I actually got this idea from a really fantastic fanfiction on Fanfiction.net. However, I can no longer find it at all. Which is a shame, cause it was really good.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy it! This is very much set in Batman: The Animated Series Universe. Teensy bit of gore.

When Barbara died, everything went to hell in a handbasket.

Criminals ran free while Batman and every crime-fighting member of his household fought for their lives and freedom. Close friends of their family had to go into hiding, not from the police, thank god, but from the goons who now knew who Bruce Wayne truly was and how they could hurt him.

When Batman was captured, it was not because the law had been so clever and brutal it had beaten him down.

Instead, it was because Robin, or Tim Drake, had been shot. 

Right through the thigh, blossoming red and cracking his femur bone, an agonized sound coming from him that might've stopped the witch hunt had Commissioner Gordon heard it. There was no pain comparable to a femur breaking, even if only a crack, and when Batman had turned back for him, that was when he'd had to give up.

They were in Arkham.

What killed Bruce was that he and Tim were on opposite ends, not allowed to see each other, and of course he worried that Tim was not doing well. Yes, he was working on escape the entire time, but that did nothing to allay his fears for his youngest son. Was he in pain? Was he in danger from other inmates? With a cracked femur, he should definitely be in a full leg cast, and that, Bruce knew from experience, was not exactly easy to fight in.

Today, Commissioner Gordon had stopped by, that look in his eye that had been there since the death of his daughter. His warmer, but fair, look had gone, and instead there was an intense hatred. "Batman, or should I say, Bruce."

Bruce sat calmly on his cot, looking up at the Commissioner with an unreadable expression.

He glared again, shoving his hands in his pockets. "You have nothing to say?"

"How is my son?" Bruce said, a tone not lacking in accusation. He knew that, as someone who has lost a daughter, Gordon should be the last one to deny him even access to news about his child.

He had already apologized for Barbara's death. He had said that he would have done anything to make sure it did not happen.

It didn't make much difference to Gordon, unsurprisingly.

Gordon glanced over to Harvey Bullock, who stood off to the side a bit awkwardly. Then he looked back towards Batman, a total lack of empathy on his face. "He's still here."

"A child should not be in Arkham. You know that," Bruce said, still not rising.

"A child should not be fighting crime. As it is, this child is so dangerous there's nowhere else to put him," Gordon said stiffly.

Batman gave him a flat look. "He has a broken leg, full leg cast. Please tell me how a child on crutches is dangerous."

"He doesn't have a full leg cast or crutches."

Bruce blinked. He had considered this possibility, but he had also thought even Gordon, as stricken with grief as he was, would not put Tim through unnecessary pain. "Then what have you done for his injury?"

Bullock looked uncomfortable, but Gordon didn't even flinch. "Nothing, the same as you did for my daughter."

Bruce didn't often feel true fury. But he wanted to kill Gordon at that moment, just aware that Tim suffered with a broken femur back in some distant portion of Arkham. "Gordon. That's more than cruelty, he's a child."

"You took my child," Gordon hissed, seeming like he would burst into tears again.

"So you're going to take mine?" Bruce said evenly, fighting his inner rage. "Barbara loved Tim, Gordon. She would not want this."

"You _do not_ get to say that!" Gordon shouted. He turned on his heel, stalking away.

"You will regret what you're doing, Gordon," Bruce said, and that made Gordon turn around sharply.

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a prediction."

But Gordon stalked away, leaving Batman alone once more.

He gritted his teeth, wishing there was some way to help Tim. There was no way he deserved this, and Bruce felt regret that he'd taken him on. There was nothing wrong with Tim as Robin, but in this case, he was a vulnerable child, and he was suffering greatly.

At least Dick was free.

\----

But Dick was not free. 

His hands cuffed tightly behind his back, he was marched into Arkham. The eyes of the criminally insane roved over him, some with bemusement and others with sick glee.

He was maskless, not that many of them would have recognized him as Dick Grayson. He was wearing civvies, but everyone knew anyway. Word had undoubtedly spread before him, and he could hear the jeers and cackles as Harvey Bullock led him towards his cell.

As they approached, he thought he could make out someone else in the cell, and his first thought was that they intended him to be beat up by a vengeful enemy. But as he approached, his heart fell into his feet.

"Tim?"

Bullock didn't say anything, shoving him inside.

Tim groaned, looking over. He did not get up from the cot, and the smell of infection filled the air.

As soon as he was uncuffed, Dick was by Tim's side, looking first at his face, which was flushed with fever, and then at his wound, a bullet wound through the thigh that was seeping through unchanged bandages.

"What the hell? What kind of medical care is this?" Dick demanded, but Bullock had already shut the cell door.

"I'm doing what I can," he grunted, and walked away.

"Dick?" Tim looked at him feverishly, as if sure it couldn't be him. He reached out a hand, and it landed haphazardly on Dick's face.

Dick took the hand, which was warm and sticky, and gently pushed back Tim's hair, which was thick with sweat. "Hey, little brother."

He wanted to scream and yell, get attention, get Tim somewhere he would be taken care of, but there was no such place, and there were no people who cared. He eyed the wound with dismay, seeing it was clearly quite thoroughly infected.

"How long have they had you?"

"I don't know," Tim said, voice scratching out of his throat. His voice was heavy with pain, and he looked like he hadn't moved in days.

Dick had thought, as he sat and stroked Tim’s head, that Tim would hold out. That somehow, Gordon would see the insanity of what he was doing, and let them get him treatment.

He was unfortunately quite wrong.

\----

By the sixth day he’d been there, Dick was no longer certain Tim would survive. He’d known things were not going well when, despite the pain, Tim had latched onto him with a whimper and no explanation, and had simply not let go yet.

Tim was smotheringly hot, feverish brow buried into Dick’s neck as if trying to steal his cool.

Dick was very glad he was as strong as he was, though he tried not to move Tim at all if he could. Tim would let him, but he’d clearly be in a lot of pain the whole time, trembling, fighting louder noises, fingers clenching in his prison uniform.

On the sixth day, the cell door had opened, and in had walked the Commissioner himself.

Dick wanted to kill him on the spot. But he simply couldn’t, flanked as the Commissioner was with guards holding guns ( _probably_ taser guns) and the fact he’d pretty much have to shove Tim aside to have any chance. That would put Tim in just too much pain.

“What the fuck do you want?” he growled, Tim in a half-awake stupor against his torso.

Gordon may have had a look of pity for a moment, but he corrected himself. “It’s been determined Tim Drake is not criminally insane, simply a criminal. He will be put in the regular prison.”

Dick held tightly to Tim. “Will he receive medical attention there?”

“For what?”

Dick snarled, “You know damn well what. He is _dying_ , Jim, haven’t you gone far enough in destroying Batman’s life, my life? You can’t take it out on Tim, he’s a child!”

“You know how hypocritical that is?” Gordon said, not looking at Tim or Dick. “My Barbara must been out there at fourteen. Batman trained and deployed this Robin recently. Tell me, why does he deserve a child’s protection when he’s maimed full grown men?”

Dick could feel Tim’s hot tears on his neck. He seemed to have some awareness of what was going on, or the pain had gotten too great again. “You're the hypocrite. Your behavior is worse than the Joker's, and yet you pretend you're helping others.”

“Take the boy,” Gordon said, not looking directly at Dick.

Tim screamed as soon as they laid hands on him, surely jolting him painfully. But Dick was not about to lose him without a fight; preferably, he was not going to lose him at all.

He stood, he would apologize later to Tim for the pain, and freed an arm to fight against the crooked guards. And Dick was much better trained than either, and considerably healed from the battle he'd been through almost a week ago.

Tim, admirably enough, despite his agonized noises, held tight, not allowing himself to drop out of Nightwing's grip. He was like a koala, albeit one in a lot of pain.

They had not brought enough guards after all. Dick burst past the cell door, and would have hightailed it down the cell block, had the Commissioner not stuck a gun in his face.

“Don't think I won't shoot.”

He was too far away to knock the gun away safely. He angled himself to at least protect Tim, and challenged him, “Do it. I'd rather die than let you take Tim.”

“No,” Tim managed, voice shaking violently from pain, “No, Dick...”

“But understand what you're doing. You think Batman suffers from Barbara's death? Think of how it will be when you've got both of ours on your conscience.”

Jim Gordon did not shoot, but did not show any signs of letting them go. Finally, he clenched his teeth, saying, “He can stay here, but that's all.”

“He will die!” Dick shouted, not at all satisfied with this compromise.

“At least he'll die with someone who cares about him. Barbara had that much,” Gordon muttered, and the men seized Dick, dragging him and Tim back inside the cell.

“You're a murderer!” Dick shouted after him. “You're murdering him, whether you put the gun to his head or not!”

Dick had never heard quite the agonized whimpers coming from Tim. He still clung to him, face streaked with red as he tried hard to combat the pain. There was no doing so, there was simply too much, Dick was sure. He held him tightly as they locked the cell shut, and there was no response from Gordon. He stroked his hair, even as Tim gasped for air in his crying.

It killed Dick to be so utterly helpless in the face of Tim's suffering and likely death. He predicted it would only be a few more days at most.

“Hey, Baby Bird,” he said, trying hard to soothe him, as impossible as he knew it was. “You're going to be okay. Bruce and I will figure something out, I swear.”

–

It took over a week for the news to spread, total. That was unusual, but it traveled once the news of the crusade against Batman and all his family came to light.

Batman hadn't known quite what he'd expected from his allies, but it hadn't quite been what happened—all right, maybe it was somewhat predictable.

He heard the commotion down the hallway, and stood on his feet quickly, prepared for whatever would come.

He instantly recognized what was going on—no one could tear through metal quite like that, except for--

“Bruce!” Superman smashed the keypad, making the door open. He also cracked open the handcuffs they'd put him in after the first near escape.

Bruce nodded at Superman, saying urgently, “Where are Dick and Tim?”

Superman flew off in the right direction, leaving Bruce running after him.

It took a very short amount of time (and a bit of picking through debris) to get to them. He could see Dick from where he was, standing near the door and watching; when he saw Superman, he was quick to pull back, and return with a limp load.

Bruce's heart clenched. Tim.

Superman smashed through this one even more easily. Dick was already running out of the entrance, grim. Tim made not a sound, lolling in his arms, but there was the clear rise and fall of his chest, and the red, sweat-slicked shine of his skin.

Bruce made the handoff with Dick; he could see how exhausted caring for Tim all this time had made him, and anything that made them faster would probably be better. His son was burning up in his arms, fever impossibly high. The smell of his wound was impossible to ignore as well—he could see Clark's face darken.

“This way,” Superman said, “I punched a hole through the back wall.”

There was little resistance. Batman was pretty sure that Superman had been at least a little thorough in clearing the potential shooters. He must have reasoned that their family would be unarmed and maybe not in the best state—he had been quite right.

Wonder Woman was in the road outside, invisible jet ready to go. Dick climbed up first, and Bruce passed up Tim. They were in within seconds.

“Superman,” Wonder Woman said into a comlink, as she took off, “Where do you want me to go?”

“A hospital, somewhere that will treat him,” Bruce was quick to say, now cradling Tim, honestly fearful this would be his last time with his youngest son. He did not act like it, but he knew Dick knew.

Wonder Woman's eyes widened at the state of Tim. She nodded, “Metropolis. Not far from Gotham, Superman's got sway.”

It was a very damning state that Tim was in. Unconsciousness was a very, very bad sign in general, life-threatening in any circumstance. _Prolonged_ unconsciousness was even worse. He didn't peel back the bandages, but he could see they were very inadequate at this point, pus and blood oozed past it.

The jet was fast, at least as fast as the batjet. He wished it was faster, even if it would have meant that he didn't have the best one.

Metropolis shimmered in the distance. It was daytime, and surely this would be all over the news and honestly, Batman was somewhat surprised at the risk that Superman took to defy the law and get him out.

To be fair, he had to have known about the conditions to an extent. Bruce still had a lot of bruises from his treatment; it didn't matter much to him, because Tim was in much worse shape, but he got the feeling Clark, as always, was protective.

They landed. Superman was already taking Tim from him, and for an irrational moment, Bruce wanted to fight him, wanted to keep his child in his arms.

But Superman was faster, Superman held the sway, so he let him go.

He disappeared into the hospital.

–

While the Commissioner was found guilty of his crimes, it didn't undo the damage.

Bruce, Dick, and Tim were released. They were allowed to continue their lives as free people, after the ordeal and mistreatment they had been through, plus the outrage of the superhero community.

But that didn't grow Tim a new leg.

And that didn't protect all the people who had been their friends.

They did grow into a new life, get new identities in a West Coast city. Superman watched over them like a paranoid mother for the first couple years.

They were all right. But at the same time, they really never would be.


End file.
